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Eloisa james -a -kiss -at -midnight

1.
A Kiss at Midnight
Eloisa James

2.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Carol Bly. She didn’t care too much for the genre of romance—or so she said. But she read
my sister and me fairy tales over and over, enchanting us with princes who swept in on white chargers and princesses whose golden hair doubled
as ladders. She gave me my first copies of Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and Pride and Prejudice. In short, Mom, it’s all your fault!

4.
Prologue
Once upon a time, not so very long ago . . .
This story begins with a carriage that was never a pumpkin, though it fled at midnight; a godmother who lost track of her charge, though she had no
magic wand; and several so-called rats who secretly would have enjoyed wearing livery.
And, of course, there’s a girl too, though she didn’t know how to dance, nor did she want to marry a prince.
But it really begins with the rats.
They were out of control; everybody said so. Mrs. Swallow, the housekeeper, fretted about it regularly. “Ican’t abide the way those little varmints
chew up a pair of shoes when a body’s not looking,” she told the butler, a comfortable soul by the name of Mr. Cherryderry.
“Iknow just what you’re saying,” he told her with an edge in his voice that she didn’t hear often. “Ican’t abide them. Those sharp noses, and the
yapping at night, and—”
“The way they eat!” Mrs. Swallow broke in. “From the table, from the very plates!”
“It is from the plates,” Cherryderry told her. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes, Mrs. Swallow, that Ihave! By the hand of Mrs. Daltry herself!”
Mrs. Swallow’s little shriek might have been heard all the way in the drawing room . . . except the rats were making such a racket that no one in
that chamber could hear anything.

5.
One
YarrowHouse
The residence of Mrs. Mariana Daltry; her daughter, Victoria; and Miss Katherine Daltry
Miss Katherine Daltry, known to almost all as Kate, got down from her horse seething with rage.
It should be said that the condition wasn’t unfamiliar to her. Before her father died seven years earlier, she found herself sometimes irritated with
her new stepmother. But it wasn’t until he was gone, and the new Mrs. Daltry—who had held that title for a matter of mere months—started ruling the
roost, that Kate really learned the meaning of anger.
Anger was watching tenants on the estate be forced to pay double the rent or leave cottages where they’d lived their whole lives. Anger was
watching the crops wilt and the hedges overgrow because her stepmother begrudged the money needed to maintain the estate. Anger was
watching her father’s money be poured into new gowns and bonnets and frilly things . . . so numerous that her stepmother and stepsister couldn’t
find days enough in the year to wear them all.
It was the pitying glances she had from acquaintances who never met her at dinner anymore. It was being relegated to a chamber in the attic,
with faded furnishings that advertised her relative worth in the household. It was the self-loathing of someone who can’t quite bring herself to leave
home and have done with it. It was fueled by humiliation, and despair, and the absolute certainty that her father must be turning in his grave.
She stomped up the front steps girding her loins for battle, as her father himself would have said. “Hello, Cherryderry,” she said, as their dear old
butler opened the door. “Are you playing footman now?”
“Herself sent the footmen off to London to fetch a doctor,” Cherryderry said. “To be exact, two doctors.”
“Having a spell, is she?” Kate pulled her gloves off carefully, since the leather was separating from its lining around the wrist. Time was when she
might have actually wondered if her stepmother (known to the household as Herself) was malingering, but no longer. Not after years of false alarms
and voices screaming in the middle of the night about attacks . . . which generally turned out to be indigestion.
Though as Cherryderry had once commented, one can only hope.
“Not Herself, this time. It’s Miss Victoria’s face, Igather.”
“The bite?”
He nodded. “Dragging the lip down, so her maid told us this morning. There’s a swelling there as well.”
Sour as she felt, Kate felt a pulse of sympathy. Poor Victoria didn’t have much going for her outside of her pretty face and prettier frocks; it would
break her stepsister’s heart if she were permanently disfigured.
“Ihave to talk to Herself about the vicar’s wife,” she said, handing her pelisse to Cherryderry. “Or rather, the former vicar’s wife. After his death, I
moved the family to the far cottage.”
“Bad business,” the butler said. “Especially in a vicar. Seems that a vicar shouldn’t take his own life.”
“He left her with four children,” Kate said.
“Mind you, it’s not easy for a man to get over the loss of a limb.”
“Well, now his children have to get over the loss of him,” she said unsympathetically. “Not to mention that my stepmother sent an eviction notice to
his widow yesterday.”
Cherryderry frowned. “Herself says you’re to dine with them tonight.”
Kate stopped on her way up the stairs. “She said what?”
“You’re to dine with them tonight. And Lord Dimsdale is coming.”
“You must be joking.”
But the butler was shaking his head. “She said that. What’s more, she’s decided that Miss Victoria’s rats have to go, but for some reason she
banished them to your chamber.”
Kate closed her eyes for a moment. A day that had started out badly was only getting worse. She disliked her stepsister’s pack of little dogs,
affectionately, or not so affectionately, known to all as the rats. She also disliked Algernon Bennett, Lord Dimsdale, her stepsister’s betrothed. He

6.
smiled too easily. And she loathed even more the idea of sitting down to dinner en famille.
She generally managed to forget that she had once been mistress of the household. After all, her mother had been bedridden for years before
she died, and sickly most of Kate’s life. Kate had grown up sitting opposite her father at the dining room table, going over the menus with Mrs.
Swallow, the housekeeper . . . She had expected to debut, and marry, and raise children of her own in this very house.
But that was before her father died, and she turned into a maid-of-all-work, living in the garret.
And now she was to come to dinner, in a gown that was out-of-date, and endure the smirking pleasantries of Lord Dimsdale? Why?
She ran up the stairs with a sickening foreboding in her stomach. Kate’s stepmother was seated at her dressing table, examining her
complexion. The afternoon light fell over her shoulder, lighting her hair. It had a glare to it, that hair, a fierce yellow tint as if the strands were made of
minerals. She was wearing a morning dress with a pleated bodice of lilac net, caught under the breasts with a trailing ribbon. It was lovely . . . for a
debutante.
But Mariana could not abide the fact that she was no longer in her thirties. In fact, she had never really accepted the loss of her twenties. And so
she dressed herself to create an approximation of Mariana-at-Twenty. One thing you had to say for Kate’s stepmother: She had a reckless bravery,
a kind of fierce disregard for the conventions governing women’s aging.
But of course if Mariana’s costumes were the outward expression of her ambition, they were also the refuge of the failed. For no woman yet has
appeared twenty in her forties, and a deliciously sensual gown cannot restore youth.
“Igather you finished your peregrinations amongst your friends and bothered to come home,” Mariana said acidly.
Kate took one look around her stepmother’s boudoir and decided to remove a heap of clothes from what she was almost certain was a stool.
The room was mounded with piles of light cottons and spangled silks; they were thrown in heaps over the chairs. Or at least where one presumed
chairs to be. The room resembled a pastel snowscape, with soft mountains of fabric here and there.
“What are you doing?” her stepmother demanded as Kate hoisted the gowns in her arms.
“Sitting down,” Kate said, dropping the clothing on the floor.
Her stepmother bounded up with a screech. “Don’t treat my gowns like that, you stupid girl! The top few were delivered only a day or two ago,
and they’re magnificent. I’ll have you ironing them all night if there’s the least wrinkle, even the least.”
“Idon’t iron,” Kate said flatly. “Remember? Iput a scorch mark on a white gown three years ago.”
“Ah, the Persian belladine!” her stepmother cried, clasping her hands together like a girlish Lady Macbeth. “Ikeep it . . . there.” She pointed a
long finger to a corner where a towering mound of cloth went halfway to the ceiling. “Ishall have it altered one of these days.” She sat back down.
Kate carefully pushed the stack of gowns a little farther away from her foot. “Imust speak to you about the Crabtrees.”
“God, Ihope you managed to shovel the woman out the door,” Mariana said, lighting a cigarillo. “You know the bloody solicitor is coming next
week to assess my management of the estate. If he sees that scrap heap of a cottage, he’ll make no end of fuss. Last quarter he prosed on and on
till Ithought I’d die of boredom.”
“It’s your responsibility to keep the cottages in good repair,” Kate said, getting up to open a window.
Mariana waved her cigarillo disdainfully. “Nonsense. Those people live on my land for practically nothing. The least they can do is keep their own
houses in good nick. That Crabtree woman is living in a pigsty. Ihappened by the other day and Iwas positively horrified.”
Kate sat back down and let her eyes wander around the room. The pigsty of a room. But after a moment she realized that Mariana hadn’t noticed
her silent insult, since she had opened a little jar and was painting her lips a dark shade of copper.
“Since her husband died,” Kate said, “Mrs. Crabtree is both exhausted and afraid. The house is not a pigsty; it is simply disorganized. You can’t
evict her. She has nowhere to go.”
“Nonsense,” Mariana said, leaning closer to the glass to examine her lips. “I’m sure she has a bolt-hole all planned. Another man, most like. It’s
been over a year since Crabtree topped himself; she’ll have a new one lined up by now. You’ll see.”
Talking to her stepmother, to Kate’s mind, was like peeing in a coal-black outhouse. You had no idea what might come up, but you knew you
wouldn’t like it.
“That is cruel,” she said, trying to pitch her words so that she sounded like the voice of authority.
“They have to go,” Mariana stated. “Ican’t abide sluggards. Imade a special trip over to the vicarage, you know, the morning after her husband
jumped from the bridge. Bringing my condolences.”
Mariana preferred to avoid all the people working on the estate or in the village, except on the rare occasions when she developed a sudden
taste for playing the lady of the manor. Then she would put on an ensemble extravagantly calculated to offend country folk, descend from her
carriage, and decipher in her tenants’ startled expressions their shiftless and foolish natures. Finally she would instruct Kate to jettison them from
their homes.

7.
Luckily she generally forgot about the demand after a week or so.
“That woman, Crabtree, was lying on the settee crying. Children all over the room, a disgusting number of children, and there she was, shoulders
shaking like a bad actress. Crying. Maybe she should join a traveling theater,” Mariana said. “She’s not unattractive.”
“She—”
Mariana interrupted. “Ican’t abide idlers. Do you think Ilay about and wept after my first husband, the colonel, died? Did you see me shed a tear
when your father died, though we had enjoyed but a few months of matrimonial bliss?”
Kate had seen no tears, but Mariana needed no confirmation from her. “Although Mrs. Crabtree may not have your fortitude, she has four small
children and we have some responsibility to them—”
“I’m bored with the subject and besides, Ineed to speak to you about something important. Tonight Lord Dimsdale is coming to dinner and you
shall join us.” Mariana blew out a puff of smoke. It looked like fog escaping from a small copper pipe.
“So Cherryderry said. Why?” She and her stepmother had long ago dispensed with pleasantries. They loathed each other, and Kate couldn’t
imagine why her presence was required at the table.
“You’re going to be meeting Dimsdale’s relatives in a few days.” Mariana took another pull on her cigarillo. “Thank God, you’re slimmer than
Victoria. We can have her gowns taken in quite easily. It would be harder to go the other way.”
“What are you talking about? Ican’t imagine that Lord Dimsdale has the faintest interest in eating a meal with me, nor in introducing me to his
relatives, and the feeling is mutual.”
Before Mariana could clarify her demand, the door was flung open. “The cream isn’t working,” Victoria wailed, hurtling toward her mother. She
didn’t even see Kate, just fell to her knees and buried her face in her mother’s lap.
Instantly Mariana put down her cigarillo and wrapped her arms around her daughter’s shoulders. “Hush, babykins,” she crooned. “Of course the
cream will work. We just need to give it a little time. Ipromise you, Mother promises you, that it will work. Your face will be as beautiful as ever. And
just in case, Isent off to London for two of the very best doctors.”
Kate was beginning to feel a faint interest in the matter. “What kind of cream are you using?”
Mariana threw her an unfriendly glance. “Nothing you would have heard of. It’s made from crushed pearls, among other things. It works like a
charm on all sorts of facial imperfections. Iuse it myself, daily.”
“Just look at my lip, Kate!” Victoria said, popping her head back up. “I’m ruined for life.” Her eyes glistened with tears.
Her lower lip did look rather alarming. There was an odd violet-colored puffiness around the site that suggested infection, and her mouth had a
slight, but distinct, list to the side.
Kate got to her feet and came over for a closer look. “Has Dr. Busby seen it yet?”
“He came yesterday, but he’s an old fool,” Mariana said. “He couldn’t be expected to understand how important this is. He hadn’t a single helpful
potion or cream to offer. Nothing!”
Kate turned Victoria’s head to the side so that the light fell on it. “Ithink the bite is infected,” she said. “Are you sure this cream is hygienic?”
“Are you questioning my judgment?” Mariana shouted, standing up.
“Absolutely,” Kate retorted. “If Victoria ends up with a deformed mouth because you sloshed on some quack remedy you were swindled into
buying in London, Iwant it clear that it’s your fault.”
“You insolent toad!” Mariana said, stepping forward.
But Victoria put out an arm. “Mother, stop. Kate, do you really think there’s something wrong with the cream? My lip throbs terribly.” Victoria was
a tremendously pretty girl, with a beautiful complexion and wide, tender eyes that always looked a bit dewy, as if she had just shed a sentimental
tear, or was just about to. Since she shed tears, sentimental and otherwise, throughout the day, this made sense. Now two tears rolled down her
face.
“Ithink that there might be some infection inside the wound,” Kate said, frowning. “Your lip mended quickly, but . . .” She pushed gently, and
Victoria cried out. “It’s going to have to be lanced.”
“Never!” Mariana roared.
“Icouldn’t allow my face to be cut,” Victoria said, trembling all over.
“But you don’t want to have a disfigurement,” Kate said, schooling her tone to patience.
Victoria blinked while she thought about that.
“Nothing will happen until the London doctors arrive,” Mariana announced, sitting back down. She had a wild enthusiasm for anyone, and

8.
anything, from London. Kate suspected it was the result of a childhood spent in the country, but since Mariana never let slip even a hint about her
past, it was hard to know.
“Well, let’s hope they arrive soon,” Kate said, wondering whether an infected lip created any risk of blood infection. Presumably not . . . “Why do
you want me to join you for dinner, Mariana?”
“Because of my lip, of course,” Victoria said, snuffling like a small pig.
“Your lip,” Kate repeated.
“Ican’t go on the visit, can I?” Victoria added, with a characteristic, if maddening, lack of clarity.
“Your sister was to pay a very important visit to a member of Lord Dimsdale’s family in just a few days,” Mariana put in. “If you weren’t so busy
traipsing around the estate listening to the sob stories of feckless women, you’d remember that. He’s a prince. A prince!”
Kate dropped onto her stool again and looked at her two relatives. Mariana was as hard and bright as a new ha’penny. In contrast, Victoria’s
features were blurred and indistinct. Her hair was a delightful pale rose color, somewhere between blonde and red, and curled winsomely around
her face. Mariana’s hair had the sharp-edged perfection of someone whose maid spent three hours with a curling iron achieving precisely the look
she wanted.
“Ifail to see what the postponed visit has to do with me,” Kate said, “though Iam very sympathetic about your disappointment, Victoria.” And she
was, too. Though she loathed her stepmother, she had never felt the same hatred for her stepsister. For one thing, Victoria was too soft-natured for
anyone to dislike. And for another, Kate couldn’t help being fond of her. If Kate had taken a great deal of abuse from Mariana, the kind of affection
that her stepmother lavished on her daughter was, to Kate’s mind, almost worse.
“Well,” Victoria said heavily, sitting down on a pile of gowns about the approximate height of a stool, “you have to be me. It took me a while to
understand it, but Mother has it all cleverly planned out. And I’m sure my darling Algie will agree.”
“Icouldn’t possibly be you, whatever that means,” Kate said flatly.
“Yes, you can,” Mariana said. She had finished her cigarillo and was lighting a second from the first. “And you will,” she added.
“No, Iwon’t. Not that Ihave the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Be Victoria in what context? And with whom?”
“With Lord Dimsdale’s prince, of course,” Mariana said, regarding her through a faint haze of smoke. “Haven’t you been listening?”
“You want me to pretend to be Victoria? In front of a prince? Which prince?”
“Ididn’t understand at first either,” Victoria said, running her finger over her injured lip. “You see, before Algie can marry me, we need the
approval of some relative of his.”
“The prince,” Mariana put in.
“He’s a prince from some little country in the back of beyond, that’s what Algie says. But he’s the only representative of Algie’s mother’s family
who lives in England, and she won’t release his inheritance without the prince’s approval. His father’s will,” Victoria confided, “is most dreadfully
unfair. If Algie marries before thirty years of age, without his mother’s approval, he loses part of his inheritance—and he’s not even twenty yet!”
Very smart of Papa Dimsdale, to Kate’s mind. From what she’d seen, Dimsdale Junior was about as ready to manage an estate as the rats
were to learn choral music. Not that it was her business. “The doctors will take a look at you tomorrow morning,” she told Victoria, “and then you’ll be
off to see the prince. Rather like the cat looking at the queen.”
“She can’t go like that!” Mariana snapped. It was the first time that Kate had ever heard that edge of disgust applied to her daughter.
Victoria turned her head and looked at her mother, but said nothing.
“Of course she can,” Kate stated. “This sounds like a fool’s game to me. No one will believe for a moment that I’m Victoria. And even if they did,
don’t you think they’d remember later? What happens when this prince stands up in the church and stops the ceremony, on the grounds that the
bride isn’t the bride he met?”
“That won’t happen, if only because Victoria will be married directly afterwards, by parish license,” Mariana said. “This is the first time Dimsdale
has been invited to the castle, and we can’t miss it. His Highness is throwing a ball to celebrate his betrothal, and you’re going as Victoria.”
“Why not just postpone your visit and go after the ball is over?”
“Because Ihave to get married,” Victoria piped up.
Kate’s heart sank. “You have to get married?”
Victoria nodded. Kate looked at her stepmother, who shrugged. “She’s compromised. Three months’ worth.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Kate exclaimed. “You hardly know Dimsdale, Victoria!”
“Ilove Algie,” Victoria said, her big eyes earnest. “Ididn’t even want to debut, not after Isaw him at Westminster Abbey that Sunday back in

9.
March, but Mother made me.”
“March,” Kate said. “You met him in March and now it’s June. Tell me that darling Algie proposed, oh, say three months ago, just after you fell in
love, and you’ve kept it a secret?”
Victoria giggled at that. “You know exactly when he proposed, Kate! Itold you first, after Mother. It was just two weeks ago.”
The lines between Mariana’s nose and mouth couldn’t be plumped by a miracle cream made of crushed pearls. “Dimsdale was slightly tardy in
his attentions.”
“Not tardy in his attentions,” Kate said. “He’s seems to have been remarkably forward in that department.”
Mariana threw her a look of dislike. “Lord Dimsdale very properly proposed marriage once he understood the situation.”
“Iwould kill the man, were Iyou,” Kate told her.
“Would you?” She gave an odd smile. “You always were a fool. The viscount has a title and a snug fortune, once he gets his hands on it. He’s
utterly infatuated with your sister, and he’s set on marrying her.”
“Fortunate,” Kate commented. She looked back at Victoria. She was delicately patting her lip over and over again. “Itold you to hire a
chaperone, Mariana. She could have had anyone.”
Mariana turned back to her glass without a comment. In truth, Victoria probably wasn’t for just any man. She was too soft, too much like a soggy
pudding. She cried too much.
Though she was terribly pretty and, apparently, fertile. Fertility was always a good thing in a woman. Look how much her own father had
despaired over his lack of a son. Her mother’s inability to have more children apparently led to his marriage a mere fortnight after his wife’s death . .
. he must have been that anxious to start a new family.
Presumably he thought Mariana was as fertile as her daughter had now proved to be. At any rate, he died before testing the premise.
“So you’re asking me to visit the prince and pretend to be Victoria,” Kate said.
“I’m not asking you,” Mariana said instantly. “I’m commanding you.”
“Oh, Mother,” Victoria said. “Please, Kate. Please. Iwant to marry Algie. And, really, Irather need to . . . Ididn’t quite understand, and, well . . .”
She smoothed her gown. “Idon’t want everyone to know about the baby. And Algie doesn’t either.”
Of course Victoria hadn’t understood that she was carrying a child. Kate would be amazed to think that her stepsister had even understood the
act of conception, let alone its consequences.
“You’re asking me,” Kate said to her stepmother, ignoring Victoria for the moment. “Because although you could force me into the carriage with
Lord Dimsdale, you certainly couldn’t control what Isaid once Imet this prince.”
Mariana showed her teeth.
“Even more relevant,” Kate continued, “is the fact that Victoria made a very prominent debut just a few months ago. Surely people at the ball will
have met her—or even just have seen her?”
“That’s why I’m sending you rather than any girl Icould find on the street,” Mariana said with her usual courtesy.
“You’ll have my little doggies with you,” Victoria said. “They made me famous, so everyone will think you’re me.” And then, as if she just
remembered, another big tear rolled down her cheek. “Though Mother says that Imust give them up.”
“Apparently they are in my bedchamber,” Kate said.
“They’re yours now,” Mariana said. “At least for the visit. After that we’ll—” She broke off with a glance at her daughter. “We’ll give them to some
deserving orphans.”
“The poor tots will love them,” Victoria said mistily, ignoring the fact that the said orphans might not like being nipped by their new pets.
“Who would accompany me as chaperone?” Kate asked, putting the question of Victoria’s rats aside for the moment.
“You don’t need one,” Mariana said with a hard edge of scorn, “the way you careen about the countryside on your own.”
“A pity Ididn’t keep Victoria with me,” Kate retorted. “Iwould have ensured that Dimsdale didn’t treat her like a common trollop.”
“Oh, Isuppose that you’ve preserved your virtue,” Mariana snapped. “Much good may it do you. You needn’t worry about Lord Dimsdale making
an attempt at that dusty asset; he’s in love with Victoria.”
“Yes, he is,” Victoria said, sniffing. “And Ilove him too.” Another tear slid down her cheek.
Kate sighed. “If Iam pretending to be Victoria, it will create a scandal if Iappear in a carriage alone with Dimsdale, and the scandal will not
attach to me, but to Victoria. In short, no one will be surprised when her child appears on an abbreviated schedule after the wedding.”

10.
There was a moment of silence. “All right,” Mariana said. “Iwould have accompanied Victoria, of course, but Ican’t leave her, given her poor
state of health. You can take Rosalie with you.”
“A maid? You’re giving me a maid as a chaperone?”
“What’s the matter with that?” Mariana demanded. “She can sit between you in case you lose your head and lunge at Lord Dimsdale. You’ll have
the rats’ maid as well, of course.”
“Victoria’s dogs have their own maid?”
“Mary-Downstairs,” Victoria said. “She cleans the fireplaces, but she also gives them a bath every day, and brushes them. Pets,” Victoria added,
“are a responsibility.”
“Ishall not take Mary with me,” Kate stated. “How on earth do you expect Mrs. Swallow to manage without her?”
Mariana just shrugged.
“This won’t work,” Kate said, trying to drag the conversation back into some sort of sensible channel. “We don’t even look alike.”
“Of course you do!” Mariana snapped.
“Well, actually, we don’t,” Victoria said. “I—well, Ilook like me and Kate, well . . .” She floundered to a halt.
“What Victoria is trying to say is that she is remarkably beautiful,” Kate said, feeling her heart like a little stone in her chest, “and Iam not. Put that
together with the fact that we are stepsisters related only by marriage, and there’s no more resemblance between us than any pair of
Englishwomen seen together.”
“You have the same color hair,” Mariana said, dragging on her cigarillo.
“Really?” Victoria said doubtfully.
Actually, Mariana was probably right. But Victoria’s hair was cut in pretty curls around her head, in the very newest style, and fixed with a delicate
bandeau. Kate brushed hers out in the morning, twisted it about, and pinned it flat to her head. She had no time for meticulous grooming. More
accurately, she had no time for grooming at all.
“You’re cracked,” Kate said, staring at her stepmother. “You can’t pass me off as your daughter.”
Victoria was frowning now. “I’m afraid she’s right, Mother. Iwasn’t thinking.”
Mariana had a kind of tight look about her eyes that Kate knew from long experience signaled true rage. But for once, she was rather perplexed
about why.
“Kate is taller than Iam,” Victoria said, counting on her fingers. “Her hair is a little more yellow, not to mention long, and we don’t have the same
sort of look at all. Even if she put on my clothing—”
“She’s your sister,” Mariana said, her mouth tight, as if the copper pipe had been hammered flat.
“She’s my stepsister,” Kate said patiently. “The fact that you married my father does not make us blood relatives, and your first husband—”
“She’s your sister.”

11.
Two
Pomeroy Castle
Lancashire
Your Highness.”
The prince in question, whose given name was Gabriel Albrecht-Frederick William von Aschenberg of Warl-Marburg-Baalsfeld, looked up to find
his majordomo, Berwick, holding a salver. “I’ve got this unguentarium all in pieces, Wick. Speak quickly.”
“Unguentarium,” Wick said with distaste. “It sounds like a salacious item one might buy in Paris. The wrong side of Paris,” he added.
“Spare me your quibbles,” Gabriel said. “This particular jug was meant for the dead, not the living. It used to hold six small bones for playing
knucklebones, and was found in a child’s grave.”
Wick bent nearer and peered at the pieces of clay scattered across the desk. “Where are the knucklebones?”
“The knuckleboned Biggitstiff threw them out. In fact, he threw this little jug out too, since the child was poor, and he is only interested in ravaging
the tombs of kings. I’m trying to see whether Ican identify how the top, which Idon’t have, was attached. Ithink there were bronze rivets attached to
both these pieces.” He pointed. “And the rivets were mended at least once before the unguentarium was put in the tomb, see?”
Wick looked at the pieces. “Needs mending again. Why are you bothering?”
“This child’s parents had nothing to give him to bring to the underworld but his knucklebones,” Gabriel said, picking up his magnifying glass. “Why
shouldn’t that gift be honored equally with the trumpery gold Biggitstiff is after?”
“A message has arrived from Princess Tatiana’s delegation,” Wick said, apparently accepting Gabriel’s edict in regard to the knucklebones.
“She is now in Belgium and will arrive on schedule. We’ve had some two hundred acceptances for your betrothal ball, among them your nephew,
Algernon Bennett, Lord Dimsdale. In fact, the viscount will arrive before the ball, by the sound of it.”
“Bringing the Golden Fleece?” Gabriel’s nephew, whom he vaguely remembered as a boy with a fat bottom, had affianced himself to one of the
richest heiresses in England.
“His Lordship will be accompanied by his betrothed, Miss Victoria Daltry,” Wick said, glancing at his notes.
“It’s hard to believe that Dimsdale could have garnered such a prize; perhaps she has freckles or a squint,” Gabriel said, carefully aligning the
clay fragments so that he could determine where the rivets originated.
Wick shook his head. “At her debut this spring Miss Daltry was accounted one of the most beautiful women on the marriage market.” They had
been in England for a matter of months, but he already had a firm grasp on relevant gossip among the aristocracy. “Her adoration for her betrothed
was also universally noted,” he added.
“She hasn’t met me,” Gabriel said idly. “Maybe Ishould steal her away before my own bride arrives. An English Golden Fleece for a Russian one.
My English is far better than my Russian.”
Wick didn’t say a word, just slowly looked from Gabriel’s hair to his feet. Gabriel knew what Wick was seeing: black hair pulled back from a
widow’s peak, eyebrows that came to points over his eyes in a way that frightened some women, the shadow of a beard that never seemed to
really go away. Something in his expression scared off the soft ones, the ones that thought to cuddle and wrap his hair around their fingers after
sex.
“Of course, you could try,” Wick commented. “But Iexpect you’ll have your hands full trying to charm your own bride.”
Not his best insult, but pretty good.
“You make it sound as if Tatiana will run for the hills at the sight of me.” Gabriel knew damn well that the glimmer of ferocity in his eyes frightened
ladies who were more used to lapdogs. But for all that, he had yet to meet the woman whose eyes didn’t show a slight widening, a sparkle of
happiness, at the prospect of meeting a prince. They liked to have a prince under their belt.
Still, this was the first time he would be trying to charm a wife, rather than a lover. One had to assume that women took the business more
seriously than they did the occasional bedding.
A curse sounded in his head but died before reaching his lips. He turned back to the little pot before him. “Perhaps fortunately, my betrothed has
no more choice in the matter than Ido.”
Wick bowed. He left as silently as he had arrived.

12.
Three
YarrowHouse
There was a moment of cool silence in the room, like the silence that follows a gunshot when hunters are in the woods.
Victoria didn’t say anything. Kate took one look at her soft, bewildered eyes and saw that her mother’s pronouncement had flown over her head.
“Victoria is my sister,” Kate repeated.
“Yes, so you bloody well better go there and make sure her marriage goes through before she’s ruined. Because she’s your sister.”
A little pulse of relief rushed through Kate’s veins. She must have misunderstood, she had—
“She’s your half sister,” Mariana clarified, her voice grating.
“But—she’s—” Kate turned to Victoria. “How old are you?”
“You know how old Iam,” Victoria said, snuffling a bit as she rubbed her lower lip. “I’m almost exactly five years younger than you.”
“You’re eighteen,” Kate said. Her heart was thumping in her chest.
“Which makes you a ripe twenty-three,” Mariana said pleasantly. “Or perhaps twenty-four. At your age, it’s easy to forget.”
“Your husband, the colonel—”
Mariana shrugged.
Kate found herself struggling to breathe. She felt as if her whole life were unfolding in front of her, all the questions she never knew she had. The
shock of her father coming home, just two weeks after her mother’s funeral, and saying that he was planning to marry by special license.
Her mother lying in bed all those years, and her father popping his head in now and then to say cheerful things and toss kisses in her direction but
never to sit by his wife’s side.
Because apparently he’d been sneaking off to sit with Mariana.
“Ifeel as if I’m missing something,” Victoria said, looking from one to the other. “Are you going to cry, Kate?”
Kate recoiled. She had never cried, not since her father’s funeral. “Of course not!” she snapped.
There was another beat of silence in the room.
“Why don’t you do the honors?” Kate said finally, looking at her stepmother. “I’m agog to learn the particulars.”
“The particulars are none of your business,” Mariana stated. Then she turned to Victoria. “Listen, darling, you remember how we used to see
dearest Victor even before we came to live in this house?”
Victor! Kate had never thought for a moment that her father’s name had any connection to that of her stepsister.
“Yes,” Victoria agreed. “We did.”
“That would be because your mother was his mistress,” Kate said. “Igather he visited your house for at least eleven years, before my mother
died. Was there a colonel at all? Is Victoria illegitimate?” she asked Mariana.
“It hardly matters,” Mariana said coolly. “Ican provide for her.”
Kate knew that. Her beloved, foolish father had left everything to his wife . . . and Mariana had turned it into a sweet dowry for Victoria, and be
damned whether the estate needed the income. It was all Victoria’s now.
Who was not only pregnant, but illegitimate. One had to suppose that the colonel, Mariana’s putative first husband, had never existed.
Mariana got up and stubbed out her cigarillo in a dish overflowing with half-smoked butts. “Iam shocked beyond belief that the two of you haven’t
sprung to your feet and hugged each other in an excess of girlish enthusiasm. But since you haven’t, I’ll make this short. You will go to Pomeroy
Castle, Katherine, because your sister is carrying a child and needs the approval of the prince. You will dress as your sister, you will take the bloody
mongrels with you, and you will make this work.”

13.
Mariana looked tough, and more tired than she usually did. “In that case, you will keep the Crabtrees in their cottage,” Kate stated.
Her stepmother shrugged. She didn’t really give a damn either way, Kate realized. She had launched the Crabtrees into the situation just in case
the plea of blood relations failed.
“I’ve summoned the same man who cut Victoria’s hair,” Mariana said briskly. “He’ll be here tomorrow morning to cut off all of that rot on your
head. Three seamstresses are coming as well. You’ll need at least twenty gowns altered.”
“You’ll be at the castle for three or four days,” Victoria said.
She got to her feet, and for the first time, Kate recognized that her sister was indeed going to have a child. There was something slightly clumsy
about the way she moved.
“I’m sorry,” Victoria said, walking over to stand before Kate.
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for!” Mariana interjected.
“Yes, there is,” she insisted. “I’m sorry that our father was the sort of man he was. I’m not sorry that he married my mother, but I’m—I’m just sorry
about all of it. About what you must think of him now.”
Kate didn’t want to think about her father. She had tried not to think of him in the last seven years, since his death. It was too painful to think about
the way he laughed, and the way he would stand by the fireplace and tell her amusing stories of London, reflected firelight glinting from his
wineglass.
And now there was a whole new reason to not think of him.
She returned Victoria’s embrace politely, then disengaged herself and turned to Mariana. “Why must Icome to dinner tonight?”
“Lord Dimsdale has some doubt that you two look enough alike to fool someone who might have met your sister.”
“But my hair—”
“It’s not the hair,” her stepmother said. “We’ll put you in a decent gown and you’ll see the resemblance soon enough. Victoria is known for her
beauty, her dogs, and her glass slippers. As long as you don’t indulge your churlish tongue, you’ll pass.”
“What on earth is a glass slipper?” Kate asked.
“Oh, they’re marvelous!” Victoria cried, clasping her hands together. “Ibrought them into fashion myself this season, Kate, and then everyone
started wearing them.”
“Your feet are about the same size,” Mariana said. “They’ll fit.”
Kate looked down at her tired, gray gown and then up at her stepmother. “What would you have done if my father had lived? If Ihad debuted when
Iwas supposed to and people recognized the resemblance between myself and Victoria?”
“Ididn’t worry about it,” Mariana said with one of her shrugs.
“Why not? Wouldn’t there have been the risk that someone would have seen the two of us together and guessed?”
“She’s five years younger than you. Iwould have kept her in the schoolroom until you married.”
“Imight not have taken. Imight not have found a husband. My father would have . . .”
A smile twisted the corner of Mariana’s lips. “Oh, you would have taken. Don’t you ever look in the mirror?”
Kate stared at her. Of course she looked in the mirror. She saw her perfectly regular features staring back at her. She didn’t see Victoria’s dewy
eyes, or her light curls, or her charming smile, because she didn’t have any of those.
“You’re a bloody fool,” Mariana said, reaching out for her cigarillo case and then dropping it again. “I’m smoking too many of these, which is
entirely your fault. For God’s sake, get yourself into a decent dress by eight this evening. You’d better go see Victoria’s maid straight off; you’re not
fit to scrub the fireplace in that rag you’re wearing.”
“But Idon’t want Algie to see my lip like this,” Victoria said, sniffing.
“I’ll instruct Cherryderry to put a single candelabrum on the table,” her mother said. “Dimsdale won’t be able to see a rat if it jumps on the plate in
front of him.”
So it all came back to the rats, which was fitting, because that’s where the story began.

14.
Four
Kate knew quite well that the household was on her side. They couldn’t help it; it was bred into the bones of the best servants. They were trained to
serve ladies and gentlemen, not those of their own class. Obviously they had sensed that Mariana’s origins were not genteel. For her part, Kate had
imagined that her stepmother was a shopkeeper’s daughter, who had married a colonel. She hadn’t thought she was—
What she was.
A fallen woman. Her father’s mistress. A trollop, by any other name.
No wonder poor Victoria found herself with child. Her mother was hardly qualified to steer her through the season. For that matter, Kate wasn’t
entirely sure how to behave in polite society either. She had been only twelve when her mother retired to bed, and sixteen when her mother finally
died and her father remarried. Though she’d learned how to use cutlery, the finer nuances of behavior in polite society escaped her.
She’d had a year of dancing instruction, but it felt as if it had happened in another lifetime. Weren’t there rules about talking to princes, for
example? Did you have to back out of the room after speaking to one? Or was that a rule that applied only to kings and queens?
She found Victoria’s maid, Rosalie, in Victoria’s dressing room. Years ago the chamber had been designated for guests, but at some point
Victoria had amassed so many dresses—and they had no visitors—that it had been transformed into a wardrobe.
Kate looked around with some curiosity. The room was lined with cherry cabinets clearly stuffed with gowns. Flounces of lace and corners of
embroidered fabric poked from half-open drawers. The room smelled like roses and fresh linen.
“Cherryderry told me of the dinner tonight, and the seamstresses coming tomorrow,” Rosalie said, “and I’ve been through all of Miss Victoria’s
gowns.” That would have been no small task, given that Victoria had half again as many as her mother, though they were more neatly arranged. “I
think you should wear this tonight, as it won’t need more than a stitch or two around the bodice.”
She held up a gown of the palest pink silk. It wasn’t particularly low-cut, but it looked to be tight until just below the bosom, when the overskirt was
pulled up into curls and furbelows, revealing a dark rose lining.
Kate reached out a finger. Her father had died before they would have begun the visits to modistes to assemble a wardrobe for her debut. She
had gone straight from funereal blacks to sturdy cambrics, reflective of her changed position in the household.
“Couleur de rosette,” Rosalie said briskly. “Ifancy it will set off your hair a treat. You won’t need stays, being so slim.”
She started to unbutton her, but Kate pushed her hands away.
“Please allow me—” Rosalie began.
Kate shook her head. “I’ve been dressing myself for years, Rosalie. You can help me put that gown on, if necessary, but Iwill pull off my clothing
myself.” Which she did, leaving her in nothing more than an old chemise. She did own a pair of stays, but they were too uncomfortable to wear, as
she was on horseback every day.
Rosalie didn’t say a word, just looked at the tired chemise, and the way Kate had darned it (not terribly well), and the length of it (too short). “Mr.
Daltry . . .” the maid said, and paused.
“Turning in his grave, et cetera,” Kate said. “Let’s get on with it, Rosalie.”
So the maid began pulling out hairpins and clicking her tongue like someone counting pennies. “Inever would have thought you had all this hair!”
she said finally, having unpinned and unwound all of Kate’s locks.
“Idon’t care to have it messing about,” Kate explained. “It gets in my way while I’m working.”
“You shouldn’t be working!” Rosalie cried. “It’s just wrong, all of this, and seeing you there in that chemise like a dishcloth. Ididn’t know.” She
threw down her brush and pulled open a deep drawer. Inside were stacks of pristine white chemises.
Rosalie snatched one. “Miss Victoria won’t even notice, not that she would care because she isn’t like her mother. She likes silk for her
chemise,” the maid said, jerking Kate’s chemise over her head and throwing it to the side. “Iprefer a nice cotton, as sweat stains these terribly. But
there, if you aren’t dressed properly to the skin, you aren’t really a lady, when all’s said and done.”
The chemise settled around Kate like a translucent cloud. It was trimmed with exquisite lace.
Had her father lived and had she debuted, she would have worn garments like this all the time, not fraying, tired garments in sober grays and
blues that made her look like the poor relation she was.

15.
Her mother had left her some sort of small dowry, but without the chance to meet any eligible men, it hardly mattered. For years she’d been telling
herself to leave the house, to go to London, to find work as a governess . . . anything to escape. But that meant deserting the tenants and the
servants to Mariana’s haphazard and unfeeling oversight.
So she hadn’t left.
An hour later her hair was curled and tousled and swept up into an approximation of Victoria’s. Her face was dusted with rice powder, the better
to approximate the pampered look of her sister’s skin; she was swathed in pale pink, and her lips were painted to match.
She stood in front of the glass waiting for a moment of startled recognition. To realize that she really looked like Victoria, that she too would be
accounted a great beauty.
Not only did she not resemble her sister, but she would be accounted a beauty only by a blind man. She looked too angular and the dress hung
oddly from her shoulders.
Rosalie plucked at one sleeve. “You’re broader in the arms than Miss Victoria,” she muttered.
Kate glanced down at her offending limb and knew exactly what the problem was. She spent at least two or three hours a day in the saddle, trying
to manage the estate the way her father’s bailiff had done, before her stepmother threw him out of the house. Her arms were muscled, and lightly
colored from the sun. She couldn’t imagine that other young ladies faced that particular problem.
What’s more, her cheekbones were too pronounced, her eyebrows too sharp. “Idon’t look like Victoria,” she said, a bit dismally. She had
vaguely hoped that fashionable clothing would transform her, making her as beautiful as her sister. A woman whom all the ton considered a
diamond.
She looked more like a flinty stone than a diamond. Like herself.
“The style doesn’t suit you,” Rosalie admitted. “Pink wasn’t the right idea. You need bold colors, more like.”
“You do know why Ihave to look like Victoria, don’t you?” Kate knew perfectly well that Cherryderry had followed her up the stairs and positioned
himself outside her stepmother’s bedchamber, intent on hearing the entire conversation.
Rosalie set her mouth primly. “Nothing that Ishouldn’t know, Iwould hope.”
“Iam to accompany Lord Dimsdale on a visit to Pomeroy Castle, and Ineed to make everyone there think I’m Victoria.”
The maid’s eyes met her own in the mirror.
“It won’t work,” Kate said, accepting it. “She’s just too beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful too,” Rosalie said stoutly. “But in a different way.”
“My mouth’s too big, and when did Iget so thin?”
“Since your father died and you started doing the work of ten people. Miss Victoria, bless her soul, is as soft as a pillow, but she would be,
wouldn’t she?”
Kate eyed the material draped over her bosom. Or rather, where her bosom ought to be. “Can’t we do something about my chest, Rosalie? In
this dress, Idon’t seem to have one at all.”
Rosalie plucked at the extra material. “You’ve a nice little bosom, Miss Kate. Don’t worry. Ican’t do much for it in this dress, but I’ll find others that
will work better. Thanks be to God, Miss Victoria has more gowns in her chambers than a modiste would after a year’s labor.” A moment later she
had tucked two rolled-up stockings into the front of Kate’s chemise, and that was that.
It was odd how her similar features resulted in such a different appearance from Victoria’s. Of course, she was five years older. All ruffled and
curled and made up, she looked like a desperate aging virgin.
Panic was a new sensation. Never having been offered the chance to dress like a lady, at least not for years, Kate had rather forgotten that her
nubile years were passing.
She’d be twenty-four in a few weeks, and she felt as long in the tooth as a dowager.
Why hadn’t she noticed that she wasn’t rounded and charming and delectable anymore? When had bitterness entered her bloodstream and—
and changed her from a young girl into something else?
“This isn’t going to work,” she said abruptly. “Idon’t have the faintest resemblance to a young debutante who took the ton by storm.”
“It’s a matter of wearing the right clothing,” Rosalie said. “You don’t look your best in this gown, miss. But I’ll find a better one for you.”
There wasn’t much Kate could do but nod. She had thought . . .
Well, she hadn’t thought much about it. But she knew that she wanted to be married, and to have children of her own.

16.
A sharp pang of panic rose into her throat. What if she was already too old? What if she never—
She cut off the thought.
She would do this visit for Victoria, for her newfound sister’s sake. After that, she would leave, go to London and parlay her modest inheritance,
the money her mother had left, into a marriage license.
Women had done that for years, and she could do it as well.
She straightened her shoulders. Since her father died, she had learned what it felt like to be humiliated: to tuck your hands out of sight when you
saw acquaintances for fear they would see the reddened fingers. To hold your boots close to the horse’s side so that no one saw the worn spots.
To pretend you left your bonnet at home, time after time.
This was just a new kind of humiliation—to be dressed as lamb while feeling like mutton. She would get through it.

17.
Five
By the time Kate escaped to her room hours later, she was exhausted. She had been up at five that morning to do three hours of accounts, then
was on a horse at eight . . . not to mention the emotional toll taken by the day’s charming revelations. At dinner, Mariana had been snappy even with
the viscount, and Victoria had wept softly through three courses.
And now the dogs—the “rats”—were waiting for her, sitting in a little semicircle.
There was no more fashionable accessory than a small dog, and Victoria and Mariana, with their characteristic belief that twenty-three ball
gowns were better than one, had acquired not one small dog, but three.
Three small, yapping, silky Malteses.
They were absurdly small, smaller than most cats. And they had a sort of elegant sleekness about them that she found an affront. If she ever had
a dog, she’d want it to be one of the lop-eared, grinning dogs that ran out to greet her when she stopped by the cottages on Mariana’s lands. A dog
that barked rather than yapped.
Though at the moment they weren’t yapping. As she entered her small room, they rose in a little wave and surrounded her ankles in a burst of
furry waving tails and hot bodies. They were probably lonely. Before the bite, they were always at Victoria’s side. Perhaps they were hungry. Or
worse, they might need to visit the garden. If only she had a bell in her room . . . but persons of her status had no need to call servants.
“Isuppose,” she said slowly, thinking of the stairs and her aching legs, “Ihave to take you outside.” In point of fact, she should be grateful that they
had not urinated in her room; it was so small and the one window so high that the smell would last a month or more.
It took a few minutes to figure out how to attach ropes to their jeweled collars, not helped by the fact that they had begun yapping, jumping up and
trying to lick her face. It was hard not to flinch away.
She trudged down the back stairs that led to her room, her steps echoed by the scrabbling little claws of the rats. She was so tired that she
couldn’t even remember their names, though she thought they were all alliterative, perhaps Fairy and Flower.
“What do they eat?” she asked Cherryderry a few minutes later. He had been kind enough to accompany her to the kitchen garden and show her
the area fenced off for the dogs’ use.
“Isent Richard up to your chamber an hour or so ago; he fed them and brought them out for a walk. Iwill admit to disliking those dogs, but they’re
not vicious animals,” he said, watching them. “It’s not really their fault.”
They were all piling on top of each other, a mass of plumy tails and sharp noses.
“Caesar didn’t intend to bite Miss Victoria,” he continued. “You needn’t worry that he’ll bite you.”
“Caesar? Ithought they were all named after flowers.”
“That’s part of their trouble,” Cherryderry said. “Miss Victoria never quite settled on names for them. She changed them every week or so. They
started out as Ferdinand, Felicity, and Frederick. Currently they are Coco, Caesar, and Chester. Before that, they were Mopsie, Maria, and
something else. The lead dog—see the slightly larger one? That one is Caesar. The other two are Coco and Chester, though Chester never
learned to respond to any name other than Frederick or Freddie.”
“Why did Caesar bite Victoria, anyway? Inever thought to ask.”
“She was feeding him from her mouth.”
“What?”
“Holding a piece of meat between her lips and encouraging him to take it from her. Foolish business, coming between a dog and his meat.”
Kate shuddered. “That is disgusting.”
“Princess Charlotte has trained her dogs to do the same by all accounts,” Cherryderry said. “The princess has a lot to answer for.”
“So how do Ikeep them quiet at night?” Kate asked, longing for her bed.
“Just treat them like dogs, with respect, but firm-like. Miss Victoria made the mistake of thinking they were babies, and then she would get
annoyed and send them down to the kitchen whenever they misbehaved, so they never learned better. I’ll give you a little bag of cheese scraps.
Give them a piece every time they do something right and they’ll be fine.”

18.
Back in her room Kate discovered that the dogs had their own personalities. Caesar was remarkably unintelligent. He seemed to believe that he
was very large: He prowled and pounced and kept issuing promises to attack anyone who entered the room. In fact, he reminded her of an imperial
general; his name befitted him.
Frederick was lonely, or at least that’s what she surmised when he jumped onto the bed, licked her knee, and wagged his tail madly. Then he
gave her a dramatically imploring look, quickly followed by a roll onto his back with his legs in the air. In short, he was silly and Freddie suited him
better than Frederick.
Coco showed every sign of being remarkably vain. Victoria had glued tiny sparkling gems into the fur around her neck, and rather than trying to
scratch them off, as would any self-respecting mongrel, Coco sat with her paws perfectly aligned and her nose in the air. She showed no sign of
wishing to approach Kate’s bed, but arranged herself elegantly on a velvet cushion that had appeared on Kate’s floor along with a bowl of water.
Kate pulled Freddie out of her bed and dropped him on the floor, but he jumped straight back up again. And she was too tired, too bone-deep
tired, to do anything about it.
So she lay there for a moment thinking about her father, little pulses of anger going through her body. How could he have done this? He must
have loved Mariana; otherwise, why would he marry his mistress?
It was a good thing that she never made her debut. She knew little of society, all things told, but she knew that no one would befriend a young lady
whose stepmother was a woman of ill repute, even given that Mariana did marry her protector.
And yet Mariana and Victoria had simply marched into London, opened up her father’s town house, and established Victoria as a beautiful young
heiress.
There was a lesson there, she thought sleepily.

19.
Six
The next morning
The French coiffeur and the two London doctors arrived together the next morning, one prepared to cut off Kate’s hair and the others to lance
Victoria’s lip. Both sisters refused. Mariana had hysterics, waving her cigarillo around her head and shrieking like a fishwife.
But the session with Rosalie the evening before had cleared Kate’s mind. She wasn’t getting any younger, and her only crowning glory was her
hair. She already looked too thin, almost haggard. Her face might look even worse without her masses of hair.
“Irefuse!” she declared, raising her voice over Victoria’s sobs.
The odd thing was that she had rarely refused anything. She had fought her stepmother tooth and nail in the past seven years: fought her when
she sacked the house steward and told Kate to do the purchasing instead; fought her when she dismissed the bailiff and threw the books at Kate
and told her to do them at night.
But she had never refused to do anything. She had taken up the estate books, and the bills, and the general management, said goodbye to her
governess, to various maids, to the bailiff, and to the house steward.
She found it rather ironic that vanity was the point over which she discovered her backbone. “Iwon’t do it,” she repeated, over and over.
Monsieur Bernier threw up his hands, declaring in a trilling French accent that a smart crop would make her look ten years younger, and (he
implied) mademoiselle needed every one of those ten years.
Kate hardened her heart. “Iam grateful for your opinion, monsieur, but no.”
“You’ll ruin it,” Mariana cried, her voice careening to the edge of frenzy and back. “You’ll ruin everything. Your sister won’t be able to marry, and
she’ll have her child out of wedlock.”
Kate saw Monsieur Bernier’s eyes widen and she gave him a look. Seven years of estate management had given her a quite effective glare; he
flinched.
“It’s all right, Mother,” Victoria put in, sniffling, “Kate will simply have to wear wigs, that’s all. She’ll be hot, but it’s a matter of only a few days.”
“Wigs,” Mariana said, with a kind of strangled gasp.
“Ihave them in all sorts of colors to match my dresses,” Victoria said. “If Rosalie plaits Kate’s hair every morning and then pins it flat, she would
be perfectly fashionable and everyone will simply assume that Ilove my wigs.”
“True,” Mariana said, taking a hard draw on her cigarillo.
“I’ll even give you my Circassian Scalp,” Victoria said.
Kate wrinkled her nose.
“No, it’s lovely, an elegant pale blue wig that goes beautifully with gowns in blue and green. Plus there’s a jeweled bandeau to wear with it, which
will help it stay on your head.”
“Fine,” Mariana said. “Now the doctors are going to lance your lip, Victoria, and that is the last Iwant to hear from either of you for the rest of the
day.”
Victoria screamed and cried, but at last the grim deed was done.
Mariana retired to bed with a headache; Victoria retired to bed with a weeping fit; Kate took the dogs with her on a visit to the Crabtrees.

20.
Seven
Pomeroy Castle
So what’s the matter with the lion?” Gabriel asked Wick, walking quickly across the outer courtyard toward the makeshift menagerie that graced
the back wall.
“Ihaven’t the faintest idea. He can’t seem to stop vomiting,” Wick replied.
“Poor old thing,” Gabriel said, coming to the lion’s cage. The beast was crouched against the back wall, its sides heaving painfully. He’d had
ownership of it for only a few months, but its eyes used to be full of light, as if it were longing to spring from the cage and eat a bystander.
It didn’t look like that anymore. Its eyes were glazed and miserable. If it were a horse, he would have . . .
“It’s not old enough to die,” Wick said, as if he heard Gabriel’s thought.
“Augustus told me it wouldn’t last more than a year.”
“The Grand Duke no longer wished for his menagerie so he may have exaggerated the beast’s age. The lion is only five years old and should live
many more, as Iunderstand it.”
“How are the rest of them?” Gabriel walked past the lion’s cage toward that of the elephant, and found Lyssa swaying placidly in her cage. She
had a sweet temperament; at the sight of him she blew some straw in a companionable sort of way. “What’s that monkey doing in there with her?”
“They became friends during the ocean passage,” Wick said. “They seem happier together.”
Gabriel walked closer and peered at the monkey. “Damned if Iknow what kind that is. Do you?”
“As Iunderstand it, she’s called a pocket monkey. The Grand Duke was given her by a pasha.”
“And the elephant came along with that Indian raja, didn’t she? Iwish people would stop giving animals as gifts. This courtyard smells.”
Wick sniffed loudly. “True. We could move them to the gardens behind the hedge maze.”
“Lyssa would get lonely out there by herself. Idon’t suppose we can let her out of her cage now and then, could we?”
“Icould ascertain whether we might build an enclosure in the orchards,” Wick said.
Gabriel stared at the unlikely pair for another moment. The monkey was sitting on the elephant’s head, stroking a big ear with her knotty-looking
fingers. “Have you had any luck finding someone to care for the animals who actually knows something about elephants and the like?”
“No,” Wick said. “We tried to lure a man from Peterman’s Circus, but he refused to leave his own lions.”
“We can’t have Peterman’s lions along with our own, the poor sick bastard.” He walked back to the first cage. “What the hell could be the matter
with it, Wick?”
“Prince Ferdinand suggested that it might be accustomed to a diet of human flesh, but Ithought it best to ignore the implications of that
comment.”
“In lieu of that, what have we been feeding it?”
“Beefsteak,” Wick said. “Good stuff too.”
“Maybe it’s too rich. What does my uncle eat after a bad night?”
“Soup.”
“Try that.”
Wick raised an eyebrow but nodded.
“On that charming topic, where is my uncle?”
“His Highness is working on the battle of Crecy this morning. He has commandeered the pigsty, which is happily free of occupants, and renamed
it the Imperial War Museum. Forty or fifty milk bottles represent the various regiments and their leaders. His exhibit,” Wick added, “is very popular

21.
with the servants’ children.”
“He’s happy then,” Gabriel said. “Isuppose—”
He was interrupted as a tall man with storklike legs trotted into the courtyard. He had hair like thistledown, which stood straight in the air and
waved slightly every time he moved. “Speak of the devil,” Gabriel said, bowing.
“Same to you, dear boy,” his uncle Prince Ferdinand Barlukova said vaguely. “Same to you. Have you seen my poor dog anywhere?”
Wick moved slightly behind Gabriel’s shoulder and said quietly, “There is some belief that the lion ate him.”
“Fur and all?”
“It might explain the beast’s current plight.”
“Ihave not seen your dog,” Gabriel told his uncle.
“Just yesterday he ate a whole plate of pickled crab apples,” Prince Ferdinand said, looking a bit tearful. “Ihave him on a pickled diet, everything
pickled. Ithink it’s much better for his digestion.”
The pickled apples might not have agreed with the dog—or, secondhand, with the lion. “Perhaps he ran away,” Gabriel said, turning toward the
great arch that led back to the inner courtyard. “He may have not appreciated your dietary innovations.”
“My dog adores pickled food,” Ferdinand stated. “Adores it, especially pickled tomatoes.”
“Next time, try pickled fish.” From the corner of his eye, Gabriel could see two aunts approaching, out for a perambulation, waving their fingers in
his direction, smiling archly. He started moving more quickly, avoiding the cook’s child at the last minute, striding finally into his chamber with a
feeling of having narrowly escaped.
The problem with having a castle was that a castle filled with people. And they were all his people, one way or another: his relatives, his lion, his
elephant, his servants . . . even the pickle-eating dog was his responsibility, though it sounded as if it might have escaped to the great hunting
ground in the sky. Probably gratefully.
“I’ll take a gun out and look for birds,” he told his manservant, a lugubrious man named Pole, who had been jettisoned from his brother’s court
because he knew far too much about the sexual proclivities of every courtier.
“Excellent,” Pole said, putting out a riding coat and breeches. “Young Alfred could do with some fresh air. Mr. Berwick is training him in service à
la française and he’s not taking to it easy-like. He will do to carry back the birds.”
“Right.”
“May Isuggest that you ask the Honorable Buckingham Toloose to accompany you?” Pole said, placing a pair of clean stockings precisely
parallel to the breeches.
“Who in the world is that?”
“He arrived yesterday, with a note from Queen Charlotte. You would have met him this evening, but Igather the meal will be en famille, given the
imminent arrival of your nephew. So it would be polite to greet the gentleman now.”
“And he is of what sort?”
“Iwould suggest that he is of a proselytizing nature—”
“Oh no,” Gabriel said. “My brother’s court was overrun by religious types. Idon’t want any of those here. You don’t want that, Pole. If Iturn into my
brother, you and the lion would be out in the cold.”
Pole smiled in a slightly detached way, as if he had been told a joke of extreme indelicacy. “Ihave faith that Your Highness will not succumb to the
delectations of a roving preacher, as did His Majesty Grand Duke Augustus. Mr. Toloose proselytizes in a different arena. Ihave warned all the
younger maids to stay away from the east wing. He has a quite amusing way about him; he was exerting it on the Princess Maria-Therese this
morning, but Ifancy she was unmoved.”
Gabriel brought to mind his beetle-browed, sixty-year-old aunt, as sturdy and ethical as a German-built boat. “Ifancy you’re right about that,” he
agreed. “And what is Mr. Toloose looking for in my household?”
“My guess would be that he is rusticating due to debts in London,” Pole observed. “His stockings are quite interesting—a brilliant orange, with
clocks—and his coat is worth more than a moderate-sized emerald.”
If Pole said that, it was true. Pole knew all about emeralds.
“All right,” Gabriel said. “Tell Berwick I’m in the gun room and send a note to Toloose requesting his company. Ibelieve my uncle might like to go
as well.”
Down in the gun room, he set to polishing the barrel of his Haas. It was a lovely tool, one of the only air guns he’d seen with seven rifling grooves,

22.
allowing a man to switch in a moment from hunting deer to hunting pheasants.
The German hunting air gun was everything life wasn’t: beautifully designed, spare, decorative. He didn’t actually care to hunt anything other than
game birds and rabbits. But that didn’t mean he scorned the beauty of a Haas, its barrel etched with the coat of arms of the Duchy of Warl-Marburg-
Baalsfeld.
His older brother’s coat of arms, to be exact.
A pulse of relief, so old that it felt as familiar as his morning beard bristles, panged in the area of his heart. He’d decided years ago that it was far
better to be a prince than a grand duke.
For all that Gabriel thought his older brother was a dried-up old stick, he felt sorry for him. It wasn’t a pleasant task, ruling a small principality,
especially given the three brothers who stood between Gabriel and Augustus, each of whom rather thought they’d like to have a crown as well.
And if not a crown, an heiress. He’d had a letter the other day implying that Rupert, the most handsome of his brothers, was toying with the sister
of Napoleon.
His mouth tightened. If Augustus hadn’t lost his mind a few months ago, Gabriel would be in Tunis this very moment, quarreling with his old
professor Biggitstiff over excavation of the legendary city of Carthage.
He wouldn’t be sitting in a damp castle in a puddle of summer rain, surrounded by elderly family members and debt-ridden courtiers . . . he’d be
sweating in the sun, making sure the dig didn’t turn into a greedy ransacking of history.
Gabriel looked down to discover that he was polishing the Haas’s barrel so hard that he was likely to obliterate the duchy’s coat of arms.
Damned Augustus and his damned ideas. Gabriel had been on the very eve of leaving for Tunis when his brother’s religious fervor burst into
flame, inspiring the Grand Duke to expel from his court everyone he considered corrupt, infirm, awkward, or mad.
In short, practically everyone, and all to save Augustus’s self-righteous little soul.
One by one, each of his elder brothers had refused to intercede, either because he was toadying up to Augustus or because (like Rupert) he just
didn’t give a damn.
Finally it was left to Gabriel. He could accept a godforsaken castle in England, big enough to house all those deemed too imperfect to grace
Augustus’s court, or he could leave for Tunis and never look back.
Put Wick and Ferdinand and the pickle-eating dog and all the rest of them out of his mind.
He couldn’t do it.
So . . . rain rather than blinding sun. A bride on her way from Russia, with a dowry to support the castle. And a castle full of miscreants and
misfits, rather than an excavation site full of crumbled rocks and bits of statuary that might, eons ago, have been the magnificent city of Carthage.
Not that he believed it was Carthage. He had wrangled his way into the excavation because he didn’t believe in Dido, the famous Queen of
Carthage, or even the existence of the city, for that matter. It was all a myth, made up by Virgil.
And now Biggitstiff was out there in Tunis chortling and labeling half the rocks in the countryside “Carthage.” Hell, by now he’d probably identified
Dido’s supposed funeral pyre. The next step would be articles detailing his sloppy assumptions and sloppier fieldwork. Gabriel’s jaw clenched at
the thought.
But he had no choice, not really. He wasn’t Augustus, with his religious principles unleavened by a sense of humor. He couldn’t watch everyone
he grew up with, from his cracked uncle to his father’s jester (seventy-five, if he was a day), be thrown into the street because Augustus deemed
them likely to tarnish his halo.
The only thing he could do was pray that Augustus’s choice for his bride—probably pious and whiskered, as virtuous as she was virginal—had
enough backbone to run the castle, so that he could leave for Carthage.
He didn’t really care who she was, as long as she could manage the castle in his absence. Beddable would be nice; biddable was a necessity.
He bent back over the Haas.

23.
Eight
After four hours in the carriage with Lord Dimsdale, Kate decided that the most interesting thing about Algernon was that he wore a corset. She’d
never dreamed that men wore stays.
“They pinch me,” Algernon confided. “But one must suffer to be elegant; that’s what my valet says.”
Since Kate disliked suffering, she was very glad that the seamstresses had not had time to alter one of Victoria’s traveling costumes to the point
of elegant pinching. The one she was wearing bunched comfortably around the waist.
“The padding doesn’t help,” Algernon said fretfully.
“What have you padded?” Kate asked, eyeing him. He swelled in the chest and shrank down at the waist so she had a good idea.
“Everyone’s costumes are padded these days,” he said, avoiding the particulars. “At any rate, Idon’t want you to think that I’d ordinarily discuss
such a thing with you, except that you are my family. Well, almost my family. Do you mind if Ibegin calling you Victoria immediately? I’m not very
good with names and Idon’t want to become confused in company.”
“Not at all,” Kate assured him. “How does my sister address you?”
“Oh, as Algie,” he said, cheering up. “You should as well. That’s one of the things that Ilove about Victoria. She never stands on ceremony . . .
she started calling me Algernon directly after she met me, and then she shortened it to Algie. That’s how Iknew,” he added, somewhat mysteriously.
“Knew what?”
“Knew that she was the one for me. It was fated, really. We felt a wonderful closeness and we both knew.”
It was fated due to the lack of a governess, to Kate’s mind. Victoria’s charming intimacies—verbal and otherwise—were the result of inadequate
guidance. She would even guess that Mariana had encouraged various improprieties.
Kate would rather slay herself than marry Algie, but she could see why Victoria adored him. He had a coziness, a kind of sweetness around his
mouth and eyes that was a soothing antidote to Mariana’s bitterness.
“Ijust wish we’d arrive at the castle,” he said tetchily. His collar was so high that it was chafing his ears, Kate noticed. She herself was lounging
back on the padded carriage seat, so comfortable that she could hardly move. Normally by this time in the day she would have already been on a
horse for hours.
“Are you worried about meeting your uncle?” she inquired.
“Why should Ibe? He comes from a little backwater, a principality they call it over there, but in England it wouldn’t be more than a small county.
Hardly a kingdom. Ican’t imagine why he has a title. It’s absurd.”
“Ibelieve there are many small principalities on the Continent,” Kate said, with a touch of doubt. Mariana didn’t believe in taking a newspaper,
and her schooling, such as it was, had come from filching books from her father’s library, not that her stepmother had ever noticed their absence.
“Iwould just introduce you, and then we could leave in the morning, but the prince insisted that you attend his ball. Most clear, his letter was. I
expect he’s worried that he won’t be able to fill the ballroom.” He eyed her. “My mother suspects that he might be making a play for you.”
“Not for me,” Kate corrected him. “For my half sister.”
“And isn’t that a turn-up for the books,” Algie said gloomily. “Imust say that Ithought the colonel existed. Icouldn’t believe it when Mrs. Daltry told
me the truth of it last night. You’d never know it from looking at her, would you? If my mother ever finds out, she’ll explode.”
Kate thought that one would know it from looking at her stepmother, but she nodded, out of some vague sense of family loyalty. “There’s no
reason your mother need ever discover the truth. Icertainly won’t tell anyone.”
“At any rate, Ilove Victoria, and Imust marry her, and my mother wants me to have the prince’s approval, and that’s that.”
Kate gave Algie an approving pat on the knee. It must have been difficult to get so many thoughts in logical order and she certainly didn’t want to
ignore his accomplishment. It was interesting to see what a healthy fear he had of his mother; that might explain why Mariana’s demand that he
marry Victoria had instantly borne fruit.
“We should be entering his lands now,” Algie said. “The man owns an awful amount of land in Lancashire, you know. My uncle thought it was an
abomination, turning good English soil over to a foreigner. For all he went to Oxford and so on, the prince still has foreign blood.”

24.
“As do you,” Kate pointed out. “You are related to him through your mother, no?”
“Well, my mother . . .” Algie said, letting his voice trail off. Apparently he didn’t consider her blood to carry the foreign taint. “You know what I
mean.”
“Have you ever met the prince?”
“Once or twice, when Iwas small. It’s rubbish, his being my uncle. He’s not that much older than Iam: perhaps ten years or a bit more. So why
should Ibe forced to parade my bride in front of him? It’s not as if he’s a king. He’s just a spare prince.”
“It will be quickly over,” Kate said.
“He’s desperate for funds, of course,” Algie reported. “Iheard that his betrothed is—”
But whatever bit of hearsay he was about to pass on was lost in a welter of noise. The coachman suddenly bellowed and pulled the carriage to
the right; the wheels squealed as they careened across the road; the dogs lost their breath expressing their opinions. Mercifully the vehicle came to
a stop without toppling over, and the second carriage (carrying trunks, Rosalie, and Algie’s valet), managed to avoid bowling them over.
Algie pulled down his waistcoat, which had got rucked up in the disturbance. “I’d better see what happened. This will take a man,” he said,
looking not a day older than his eighteen years. “You stay here where it’s safe. I’ve no doubt but that we have a bit of trouble with the axle or some
such.”
Kate gave him a moment to exit from the carriage and then straightened her traveling bonnet and followed him.
Outside, she found the groomsman soothing the horses, while Algie himself was bowing so deeply that she expected his ears to touch his knees.
A man who had to be the prince was seated on a great chestnut steed, and for a moment she could see only his dark silhouette against the sun.
She had the confused impression of his motion and power, easily controlled: an aggressive body, with big shoulders and muscled thighs.
She raised her hand to her eyes to shade the sun just as he leaped from his horse. Dark hair swirled around his shoulders as if he were one of
the actors who came through the village to play King Richard or Macbeth.
Her eyes adjusted and she changed that idea. He was no Macbeth . . . more the king of the fairies, Oberon himself, eyes at a slight, wicked tilt,
with just a hint of the exotic. His “foreign blood,” as Algie had it.
He had an accent, a delicious smoky accent that matched his eyes and his thick hair, and there was something else about him, something more
alive, more powerful and arrogant than the pallid Englishmen she met every day.
She realized her mouth had fallen open, and snapped it shut. Thank goodness, he hadn’t noticed her.
Groveling probably happened before the prince all the time. His Highness was nodding to Algie. His retinue had dismounted and were standing
about him. The man to the left was precisely what Kate imagined courtiers should be, all curled and colorful like a peacock. There was even a boy
in splendid red livery. Apparently they were out shooting, a royal shooting party.
Then he did notice her.
He surveyed her coolly, as if she were a milkmaid at the side of the road. There wasn’t a spark of interest in the man’s eyes, just a haughty
calculation, as if she’d offered to sell him milk and he found it curdled. As if he were mentally stripping off her too-large traveling costume and
staring at the stockings rolled up inside Kate’s corset.
She inclined her head a fraction of an inch. She’d be damned if she’d rush forward and curtsy, there in the dust and the road, to a prince whose
self-importance mattered more than his manners.
He didn’t react. Didn’t nod, didn’t smile, just looked away and turned back to his horse, swung onto the saddle, and rode away. His back was
even larger than she’d at first thought, larger than the smithy’s in the village, larger than . . .
She’d never met anyone so rude in her life, and that included the smithy, who was often drunk and so had an excuse.
Algie was snapping at the footman, telling him to open the carriage door and make it quick. “Of course it wasn’t the prince’s fault that our horses
were startled by his party,” he said. “Now get us back on the road and be quick about it.”
“Caesar!” Kate called. The little dog was busy yapping at the heels of a horse who could brain him with one restless movement. “Come!”
Algie motioned to a footman, but Kate stopped him. “Caesar has to learn to obey,” she said, taking out her bag of cheese.
Freddie and Coco crowded against her skirts, acting like the ravenous little pigs they were. She gave them each a piece of cheese and a pat,
and then all of a sudden Caesar realized what was going on. “Come!” she called again.
He came, and she gave him a piece of cheese.
“Tedious business,” Algie remarked.
“Yes,” Kate agreed with a sigh.

25.
“But they do seem to be less noisy. I’m afraid Victoria has too soft a nature. Just look what happened to her poor lip.”
Once they were seated Algie said, rather unnecessarily, “That was my uncle. The prince.” His tone was reverent and hushed.
“He seemed princelike,” Kate agreed.
“Can you imagine what His Highness would make of Victoria’s background?” He sounded horrified at the thought.
“Iwonder what his bride will be like,” Kate said, again picturing the prince silhouetted against the sun. He was the sort of man who would marry a
glimmering princess from a foreign land, a woman wrapped in ropes of pearls and diamonds.
“Russia women are dark-haired,” Algie said, trying to sound as if he knew what he was talking about. “Imight have introduced you, but Ithought it
was better that he not notice you until . . .” He waved a hand. “You know, until you change.”
As far as Kate could tell, he hadn’t minded a bit that Kate didn’t look as pretty as Victoria—until now.
“I’m sorry,” she told him.
He focused, blinking a little. “For what?”
“I’m not as much fun to have on your arm as Victoria. The prince would surely have noticed how beautiful she is.”
Algie was too young to dissemble. “Ido wish she were here,” he said. “But it’s probably better this way, because what if she saw him and she
decided . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Victoria adores you,” Kate told him, feeling very pleased with herself for suppressing an impulse to add “more the fool she.” They were perfectly
matched, Victoria and Algie: both fuzzy and sweet and awed by anyone with two thoughts to knock together. “And remember, the prince would
never in a million years marry someone like Victoria. Iexpect that he’s too high in the instep for even a duke’s daughter, let alone someone like my
stepsister.”
Caesar growled out the window at a passing carriage. “On the floor,” she said sternly, and he hopped down. But Freddie put his front paws on
the seat and whined gently, so she let him jump up and sit next to her. He leaned his trembling little body against her and then collapsed, chin in her
lap.
“Isay, that’s not fair,” Algie pointed out.
“Life isn’t fair,” Kate said. “Freddie is being rewarded for not barking.”
“He’s brilliant,” Algie said, rather unexpectedly.
Kate blinked down at Freddie, who was decidedly not brilliant.
“Imean the prince. My mother said that he actually took a degree at Oxford. Ididn’t even bother going to university. But he took a top degree in
ancient history. Or something like that.”
The prince had not only arrogance and royal blood and a truly beautiful riding coat, but brains?
Not so likely. Weren’t all those princes inbred? “Likely they give every prince a top degree just for gracing the door of the university,” she pointed
out. “After all, what else could they say? ‘Ido apologize, Your Highness, but you’re as stupid as a hedgehog, and so we can’t give you a degree’?”
As they trundled the last miles to the castle, she carefully nurtured that sprig of disrespect for a man whose hair curled wildly around his
shoulders, who spent his time careening about accompanied by scented courtiers, and who didn’t bother to greet her.
He counted her beneath his notice, which was humiliating but not exactly unexpected. She was beneath his notice.
In fact, thinking about the way he looked at her was almost amusing, in retrospect. She just had to get through the next few days. Then she could
take all her newly altered clothing and go to London and find just the sort of man she wanted.
She could see him in her mind’s eye. She didn’t want a man like that prince; what she wanted was someone more like Squire Mamluks, whose
property ran close by Yarrow House. He was a sweet man who doted on his wife. They had nine children. That’s what she wanted. Someone
straight and true, decent, and kind to the bone.
The very thought made her smile, which caught Algie’s attention. “Did you see the waistcoat Mr. Toloose was wearing? He was the tall one, with
the striped costume.” Obviously Algie had been experiencing some anxiety.
“Yours is very nice,” she assured him.
Algie looked down at his padded chest. “Ithought so, Imean, Ido think so. But that waistcoat . . .”
They had both found something to desire.

26.
Nine
Kate didn’t know much about castles; she had only seen engravings in one of her father’s books. She had thought Pomeroy Castle would have airy
flounces and furbelows, slender turrets, a pile of rose-colored brick in the setting sun.
Instead it was four-square and masculine, with the aggressive look of a military fortress. The two turrets were round and squat. There was nothing
lyrical about it. It bristled, its walls thick and bossy, like a stout watchman with someone to scold.
The carriage trolled down a gravel drive, through the stone archway and into a courtyard. The door to the carriage swung open and Kate stepped
down, taking the hand of one of Mariana’s groomsmen, to find that the courtyard was so crowded with people that she was tempted to turn and
peer under the carriage to see if they had accidentally run someone over.
A confused stream of persons was clattering in every direction, heading for arched passages on all sides. As she watched, a donkey cart piled
with sacks of laundry narrowly avoided a man holding a stick, from which hung at least ten fish, bound for the kitchens, no doubt. He was followed by
a man carrying a crate of live chickens, their heads poking between the slats. Two boys were carrying bunches of roses bigger than their heads,
and narrowly missed being drenched as a maid tossed out what one could only hope was nothing worse than dirty water.
Castle footmen, dressed in elegant, somber livery, quickly ushered them over the flagstones and through a second archway, into a second
courtyard . . . where everything was transformed. Here was a quiet, beautiful space, as if the castle fiercely repelled those outside the walls, but
celebrated its own occupants.
The last rays of the sun caught Kate’s eyes and dazzled them, making the windows look like molten gold, and the people strolling through the
inner courtyard like denizens of the French court: beautiful, relaxed, noble.
The castle was sober outside, and drunk on champagne inside.
She felt a flash of pure fear. What on earth was she doing, descending from a carriage in an ill-fitting traveling costume, pretending to be—
She glanced at Algie and saw the tight anxiety in his eyes and knew that he didn’t belong here either: that this gathering of people shouting at
one another in French and German, so carefully elegant and carelessly beautiful, was more than he had experienced before.
And he was her family, or he soon would be. “You look splendid,” she said warmly. “Just look how unfashionably that gentleman is dressed!”
In fact, she had no real idea what was fashionable and what wasn’t, but it was a fair bet. The man in question had almost no collar at all, whereas
Algie had three.
He followed her gaze and immediately brightened up. “Dear me, just look at those buttons,” he remarked.
They were greeted by a Mr. Berwick, who introduced himself as the majordomo of the castle. He announced that he would personally escort
Kate, trailing Rosalie, to a bedchamber in the west wing, and sent Algie and his man off in the charge of a footman.
They walked through long, quiet corridors illuminated by the deep eyes of slitted windows open to the outside air, and then through a room hung
with a worn tapestry depicting two knights on horseback.
It all fascinated Kate. How did one keep the castle warm in the winter, when most of the outside windows seemed to have no glass? And what
happened when rain drove through those narrow slits, as it sometimes must? She paused for a moment and peered through one of the little
openings onto the courtyard. She found, to her delight, clever gutters built to drain away water. The wall was extraordinarily thick, at least the length
of her arm.
Berwick had waited for her. “Iwas just investigating the gutters,” she told him.
“The windows are slanted to reduce wind pressure,” he told her, setting out again. “The west wing is just ahead. This is the main gallery. All
chambers in this wing lead from this hall; yours is the second from the end on the left. Ihave given you a room facing the courtyard, as even in this
clement weather, those facing the outside can be a trifle chilly at night.”
The gallery was punctuated at regular intervals by doors, on either side of which sprouted pilasters. After one glance, Kate broke out laughing; at
the top of each pilaster was a cherub, a frivolous, laughing cherub. And they were all different. On one side of her door was a naughty child with
flower petals in his hair, and on the other, an irritable little priest with starched wings instead of a neck cloth.
Kate stood in the middle of the corridor, turning around to make sure that she saw every one. Finally she glanced down again to see Berwick
patiently waiting, not in the least annoyed.
“How on earth did this come about?” she asked.

27.
“As Iunderstand it, a young son of the Pomeroy family traveled in the 1500s to Italy and found himself enamored of Italian sculptors. So he stole
one and brought the poor man here. The sculptor was so irritated by his kidnapping that he turned everyone in the household into a cherub, and
when he was finished, escaped in a butter churn and was never heard from again.”
“He absconded with a sculptor?” Kate asked, fascinated.
Berwick nodded. “This is your chamber, Miss Daltry. Please do not hesitate to ring if there is anything we can do to further your comfort.” And he
showed them where the bell cord was to summon Rosalie, and how the tin bath was cleverly secreted under the tall bed.
He cast one look around the room, frowned at a vase of roses as if warning them not to droop, and took himself off.
“Oh miss,” Rosalie said, “didn’t it take us an hour to walk here, then? And that cold stone went straight through my slippers. My, but I’d hate to live
here.”
“Really?” Kate said. “But it’s so interesting. Like living in a fairy tale.”
“Not a fairy tale I’d like,” Rosalie said. “The place must be horribly damp in the winter; just feel the stone over by the window. Ugh. And Iexpect it
smells when it rains too. Iprefer Yarrow House, with nice wood paneling to keep a body warm, and a proper water closet. Ido love a water closet.”
“But this is the kind of place that people committed crimes to build,” Kate said, rather dreamily. “Iwonder what the Pomeroy family was like. From
what Isaw of one portrait we passed, the men had long upper lips and hawk noses. Perhaps he was the one who stole the Italian sculptor.”
“That’s not a nice thing to do,” Rosalie stated. “Though Idid see an Italian at the fair once that was so small he would probably fit in a butter churn
easy-like. When do you suppose those footmen will be bringing up your trunks, then? I’ll say this, the room has wardrobes enough for Miss
Victoria’s garments, and that’s handy.”
Berwick was nothing if not efficient; there was a brisk rap on the door and in came a string of footmen carrying the trunks, as well as cans of hot
water ready to be poured into the tin bath.
A few minutes later, Kate settled into that bath with a sigh of pure joy. All in all, she’d done less so far that day than she had for years, since her
position was not the sort that allowed one to relax of a Sunday—or even Christmas Day, for that matter. But somehow it was as exhausting to travel
in a coach as it was to ride a horse.
“Idon’t wish to hurry you, Miss Katherine,” Rosalie said after a time. “But Mr. Berwick said that once the bell rings, you must make your way down
all those stairs to the silver drawing room, wherever that is, though Ibelieve he left a footman to guide your way. Still, I’m worried about the fit of this
gown.”
So Kate reluctantly climbed from her bath, though she wouldn’t allow Rosalie to dry her. “I’m not a child in the nursery,” she said, positively
wrestling the maid for the toweling cloth. “I’ll do it myself.”
“It isn’t proper,” Rosalie said, yielding.
“Why on earth not?” Kate demanded. “Why shouldn’t a lady dry her own body? If you ask me, the impropriety is in having someone touching you
all over.”
“You’ll just have to accept it,” Rosalie said. “Ladies don’t towel themselves. Not ever.”
“Lord almighty,” Kate said with a sigh. “Isuppose it’s too late for me to try to become a lady. It would take a magic wand at this point.”
“You are a lady,” Rosalie said stoutly. “It’s in your blood.” She braided Kate’s hair and pinned on a frizzled wig in a delicate shade of violet, with a
jeweled comb to hold it in place.
Her gown was cream-colored and sewn all over with pearl embroidery. Rosalie had stitched pockets into the bosom and filled them with
mounded wax, so Kate looked miraculously endowed in the front.
“It’s not terrible,” Kate said, viewing herself in the glass.
“How can you say that?” Rosalie demanded. “You look wonderful, miss. Just beautiful!”
Kate turned to the side. The gown was caught up under her jutting (wax) breasts and the cloth fell lightly to the ground, with just the tips of her
slippers showing. They too were embroidered with pearls.
“I’d put you in a pair of glass slippers,” Rosalie said, almost to herself, “but they’re only good for one night, and it’s just a family dinner. They won’t
be inspecting your toes.”
Kate turned herself square to the glass and forced herself to look critically. “Ilook like my stepmother,” she said finally.
“You don’t!”
“Ilook as if I’m trying to be young. Virginal.”
“Well, but you—” Rosalie stopped. “You’re no old biddy, miss! You should be—”

28.
“No,” Kate said flatly. “Ilook as if I’m past my first blush, which Iam. Idon’t even mind that, but Idon’t want to look as if I’m pretending. Do you see
what Imean, Rosalie? The way my stepmother pretends to be thirty.”
“You make yourself sound haggish!” Rosalie protested. “You’ve no more than what, twenty years?”
“Twenty-three,” Kate said. “And I’m tired. Isuppose there are some twenty-three-year-olds who would carry this off with aplomb, but I’m not one of
them. Ilook . . . wrong.”
“Well, miss,” Rosalie said, “one of the seamstresses spent four hours altering that gown, and Ishaped the wax inserts myself, and that’s what
you’re wearing.”
Kate gave her a swift hug. “I’m being a beast, and Iapologize. It doesn’t matter anyway, does it? Ijust need to simper at the prince, so that he will
approve Victoria’s wedding.”
“And go to the ball,” Rosalie said. “Ibrought three ball gowns, but Ihadn’t yet—”
“We’ll discuss that when the time comes,” Kate said firmly. She’d already made up her mind there would be no wax breasts at the ball. But why
give Rosalie a sleepless night worrying over it?

29.
Ten
Isaw Dimsdale’s Golden Fleece this afternoon,” Gabriel told Wick just before the evening meal, “and we can forget the idea of trading my Cossack
Fleece for his English one.”
“Really?” His majordomo cocked an eyebrow. “After meeting your esteemed relative, Icannot help but think that the young lady may succumb to
your charms, impoverished though they are.”
Gabriel gave him a wry smile. “I’m not that desperate. My uncle nearly ran down their carriage because he thought he heard his dog barking. The
yapping came from a pack of mongrels the size of fleas. And the Fleece was as unattractive as her dogs: overdressed, overly bold with her eyes,
and overly gaunt. Ihave minimal standards, but Ihave them.”
“Ilike her,” Wick said thoughtfully. “And she has only three dogs.”
“They’re the kind that spin in circles and bite their own tails. Which is what Iwould do if Ihad to spend much time with her. She looked at me as if I
were a disreputable banker. Ithink she didn’t like my hair.”
Wick grinned. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Disapproved of you, did she?”
“Soundly.”
“Well, you’ll have to get through dinner with her, because I’ve put her at your right and I’m not switching places at this point. Ihave you dining in the
morning room and the rest of the horde in the dining room proper. There are more arriving tomorrow, so I’ll have to switch to the great hall for
meals.”
“You don’t mind all of this, do you?” Gabriel asked, looking at the boy he’d known his whole life, now grown to a man.
“Iwas made for it.”
“Well, I’m glad Igot a castle for you to muck about in.”
“You should be glad for yourself,” Wick pointed out.
“I’m not,” Gabriel said. “But Ihave a brotherly pride in the fact Ispared Augustus the sight of you.”
“Not very nice of the Grand Duke,” Wick said, pouring himself a small glass of brandy and tossing it back. “Throwing out his own brothers like
that.”
“Augustus would prefer to forget that our father left quite so many counterfeit coins with his own face around Marburg.”
“Idon’t look like Augustus,” Wick said, revolted.
“That’s because he resembles my mother, whereas the two of us take after the old devil himself.”
Wick’s mother was a laundress, and Gabriel’s a Grand Duchess, but the distinction never bothered either of them much. They were born mere
days apart, and their father had promptly brought Wick into the nursery to be raised with his legitimate children, not to mention a pack of other
assorted half siblings.
“He was a ripe one,” Wick said. “Ialways liked our papa.”
“Did we see him enough to judge?” Gabriel asked. “Here, give me some of that brandy.”
Wick handed over a glass. “We saw him the right amount, I’d say. Look what happened to Augustus, after he had to spend every day with him.”
It was true. Gabriel and Wick shared a bone-deep conviction that being the last son and an illegitimate son were far better fates than anything
closer to the crown.
“Iknow why you’re brooding over Dimsdale’s fiancée,” Wick said. “It’s because you’re nervous about the impending arrival of your own.”
“She’s got the look of a shrew,” Gabriel said. “I’ll admit, it gave me a qualm about Tatiana.”
“Iknow,” Wick said, “you want beddable and biddable.”
“It’s not as if you’re looking for anything different,” Gabriel said, stung by something in Wick’s voice.